This paper is a discussion of Hou Hsiao-hsien's 2007 Flight of the Red Balloon in the context of a Winnicottian reading of Hou's use of improvisation and long takes to represent the dilemmas of contemporary motherhood. Thinking about a shot as a container for emotion rather than as a set-up for the gaze, I also try to introduce a psychoanalytic dimension to formal, political, and aesthetic readings of Hou's cinematic realism as it emerged from the politics and practices of the Taiwan New Cinema.